Sudan's New Spending Plans Set Off Gold Rush

Would-be investors flock to the south,
where an ambitious development program promises to yield lucrative
contracts

by Edmund Sanders

. . . With a new peace deal between southern rebels and Khartoum and the July 9
inauguration of a coalition government, international donors are preparing
to pump more than $2 billion into southern Sudan, a bleak, underdeveloped
region still largely devoid of asphalt roads, running water and electricity.

A new semiautonomous southern government, led by the formerly rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement, plans to
spend $1.5 billion more annually on construction, courtesy of an
oil-revenue-sharing agreement with the north.

The giant development plan - one of the most ambitious in the world outside
Iraq - is drawing an army of would-be investors, speculators and
contractors, who are rushing to the designated southern capital, Rumbek, in
search of opportunity. . . .

Oil giants including Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch/Shell Group, China National
Petroleum Corp., Petronas of Malaysia and India's Oil & Natural Gas Corp.
have all had preliminary talks with SPLM officials, said one official in the
organization.

Under the peace accord, the north and south will divide oil revenues
equally, and new exploration will be approved by a joint commission. Sudan
currently earns about $3 billion a year from oil production, which is
expected to reach 500,000 barrels a day by year's end. . . .